


Things Aren't So Beautiful Now

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 22:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3872506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world isn't very giving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Aren't So Beautiful Now

**Author's Note:**

> this is for ellen, who wanted a reverse swan song--of sorts.

               Dean towers over Sam like he hasn’t since they were kids; when Sam was still the _little_ brother. Sam’s on his knees, weak, bleeding, Dean’s fist in his shirt. Dean lays a punch on Sam, and his head lolls. He can feel his skin break, and the blood pour, and his jaw ache and beg for mercy. For a second, he forgets how to breathe until the world comes spinning back into place, and in front of his eyes the Mark is glowing, burning Dean’s skin, and Sam would swear he hears it sizzling. Dean’s gripping the Blade in his hand so tight his knuckles are white. Sam can see Dean’s blood pumping through his veins, from the Mark to the Blade, like they are feeding off of each other. Sam can’t stop staring at the sight of it—mostly because every other sight in the room is more than Sam could bear to see.

               Crowley crumpled on the floor; throat slashed open, blood drained. Sam doesn’t care about Crowley’s life, but he has seemed like such a constant in their lives for so long, it was weird to see him go out with such a brutal and heartless whimper. There was no fight; Dean took all the fight out of him, sucked it right out with every kick, punch, and slash until Crowley was no more than a punk demon with a knife held to his throat.

What seemed like an endless battle with the King of the Crossroads turned King of Hell was over in a flash of mindless cruelty. Sam would almost be glad he was gone if it wasn’t that the look in Dean’s eyes suggested he wouldn’t have cared if it had been a twelve year old girl he just ganked.

               Castiel was even worse. Not just in the brutality, but in the solemnity, the indifference. Now, Cas lays cold on the ground; he looks like he’s sleeping—Sam might have believed he was out cold if it weren’t for the echo of his broken wings burned into the ground and the pool of blood that is still pouring from his wounded chest. His eyes shut and face calm, even his muscles seem relaxed. Like someone who died in his sleep—or someone who died at the hands of someone he never believed could hurt him; who he was always comfortable near, even when the other had a weapon in his hand.

               Sam watched Dean kill Castiel. He watched him plunge Cas’s own angel blade into his chest as if the only reason he did it was because Cas was someone there he could kill. Sam watched Dean turn away from Cas before his Grace had even flickered out, like he wasn’t worth more than an ant under his shoe.

               Charlie, Dean’s last kill, bleeds freely onto the Book of the Damned, her own blood smearing the bloody text on the pages. Her head a dead weight on the open book, lifeless eyes, terrified, staring right at Sam, but Sam can’t look back. He didn’t see Dean kill her; had looked away by then. But he heard her begging, “Dean, please, come on, this isn’t you,” her strangled scream, and the thud of her head falling dead against the Book.

               He can’t look at his friends, dead at the hands of his brother—but he can’t stand another second looking at the thing that caused it; that hideous thing etched into Dean’s arm, fueling his repressed anger and violence and pain, taunting him for what he did as a demon, what he did in Hell. Telling him this is his story, and it is only just beginning.

               So Sam looks into Dean’s eyes. They are big and green and sparkling, and they are definitely Dean’s, but they are not Sam’s brother’s—too cold, too mean. Dean won’t stop punching him. Sam doesn’t know what are tears and what is blood anymore, his face is wet and drowning. His nose is broken, and he can barely breathe out his mouth. His head is getting foggier by the minute. He thinks he’s saying Dean’s name, like it’s a prayer, or maybe he’s begging, he doesn’t know, he might not even be saying it out loud. If he is, and Dean can hear him, then he doesn’t care.

               He knees Sam in the chest and Sam doubles over and coughs, spraying blood and practically leaning against his brother. “ _Dean,_ ” he doesn’t know how loud it is, but he’s sure he made a noise this time, and he tries again, louder, “ _Dean!”_

               Dean suddenly drops the Blade, bringing his hand to Sam’s face, and his fingers caress Sam’s cheek, travelling with a touch so light it’s like a ghost’s. Sam almost thinks Dean’s coming out of it, that he reached his brother the way Dean reached him five years ago, but then Dean’s fingers grip Sam’s chin, tighter and tighter until it aches.

               Dean grins, but his eyes grow colder, and somehow Sam shivers, “Don’t try to stop this, Sam. I’m going to kill you. I’m gonna wash my hands in your sticky, warm blood. You’re gonna learn what it’s like to have your brother’s hands rip you apart piece by piece. And I’m gonna learn what it’s like to hold your heart in my hand.”

               “ _Why?”_ Sam asks weakly, and he’s too far gone to know why he should care.

               “Because I _can,_ ” Dean growls. He releases Sam’s chin, and Sam pulls away on instinct. Dean laughs, humorless and bitter, and Sam’s never heard a sound so evil come out of his brother.

               “You’ve spent your whole life trying to get away from me, Sam,” Dean snaps, as a fist rains down on Sam’s temple. “Well, this time, you can’t.”

               “I-I don’t wanna leave you, Dean,” Sam says, choking on blood and tears and words. They fall out of his mouth before he can think about them, but they both know they’re true. They both know they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. “I won’t leave you.”

               Dean roars in a fit of rage, and throws Sam to the ground. Dean hangs over him, chest heaving, arms on either side of Sam’s head, holding himself up. Sam can almost imagine the mischievous smile on Dean’s face as he said “Easy, Tiger,” almost ten years ago, when they were stuck just like this. Sam might be smiling. He can’t feel his face.

               But Dean is seething, teeth bared, a hate in his eyes that Sam has never seen him give another creature. He wonders vaguely why he killed the others with such indifference, but looks upon Sam as if he is everything Dean stands against. If the North Pole is how Dean used to look at Sam, than the expression he wears now is the South.

               Dean sits on Sam’s hips, pinning him, and his fingers close around Sam’s throat. Sam gasps, and his own hands grapple at Dean’s wrists, but it’s a weak attempt at escape. Sam doesn’t have enough life left in him; he’ll be dead in a minute.

Sam’s knuckles brush against the Mark ignited on Dean’s arm, and it burns, an agony more intense than every ache and bruise and break in his body. Dean flinches away from the contact and releases Sam, who takes huge gulps, unable to focus on anything but air.

Dean takes him by surprise by slapping him across the face, and Sam’s head whips to the side, so he’s watching the wall. He doesn’t want to look back. He wants to stare at the wall until it’s all over, till his blood is dripping on Dean’s hands, and his life flickers away like a cheap lightbulb, but he can’t. Dean doesn’t want to do this; Sam can’t let him do it alone. So Sam looks his brother in the eyes and says, with all the energy he can muster, “It’s okay, Dean, I’m here. I’m not going to leave you.”

               Dean’s eyes soften for a beat, like he’s really seeing Sam, really hearing him. Then his expression morphs into something between fear and fury, and his hand is flying for the Blade, and Sam wants to close his eyes, doesn’t want to see the look on his brother’s face as he kills him, but “I’m not gonna leave you, Dean.”

               Sam sees green and confusion and hurt. He feels the entire length of the Blade tear into his chest. He hears words, and he thinks they come from his brother, but he can’t understand them over the sound of a voice he doesn’t recognize calling his name. It asks for him, and he’s so hurt and the voice is so pure, so he follows.

-

               _“Sam!”_ Dean screams. He rips the Blade out of his brother’s bleeding chest and throws it across the room. “ _God, Sam, no! Please! Sammy!”_ He wraps his arms around his brother and sobs into his shoulder—wracking, painful, pitiful sobs. He’s never cried like this, never felt like this. The world is spinning and his arm is burning and his head is _screaming._

 _He_ is screaming.

               Dean can’t die. The Mark won’t let him. If he could, he’d take the Blade right now and slash his throat. But Cain won’t let him, and the Mark hasn’t really felt like a curse until now. So he lays there with his lifeless brother and cries into his chest, cries “ _Sammy”_ over and over again until his throat is raw, until it’s nothing more than an incoherent mumble.

               Everything goes fuzzy, his head and his senses and his surroundings, too much for him to realize this is wrong; either shock or insanity or his body trying to cope with this intense despair. When he wakes up, when his mind clears, he’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, Sam’s lifeless form propped against him, held in Dean’s left arm, which yields the Blade covered in blood, and his right arm bleeding profusely, the Mark sliced off.

Dean doesn’t remember doing it; he’s glad he did.

               Dean leans his head against his brother’s shoulder and observes the room, everyone he killed. He hopes when the Mark takes over for good, and he continues taking lives, he can look back at this and think of it as just another massacre. See this scene in his memory without the faces of the people he used to love. But he doubts it; he doesn’t deserve it. And in his experience, the world isn’t very giving.


End file.
